LeVar Burton: Level of Excellence

0:00Great news for comedy TV fans. Every episode of the Hulu original series Alice and Steve is streaming on Hulu. From the producers of Baby Reindeer, best friends Alice and Steve see their world implode when Steve starts dating Alice's 26-year-old daughter. When the once rock-solid friendship turns sour, these best friends make the best enemies. Watch every episode of Alice and Steve on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers. Terms apply. Grainger knows when you're a procurement manager for an office park, you're not managing one building. You're managing all of them. And to stay ahead, you need to see through walls and around corners.

0:39Lights about to fail, filters ready to clog, HVAC on its last leg. If you wait until something breaks, you're already behind. Count on Grainger for quality products, easy reordering, and 24-7 support. Call 1-800-GRAINGER, click grainger.com, or just stop by. Grainger, for the ones who get it done. or a level of excellence that I believe I have yet to achieve.

1:14Welcome to literally one of the nicest people. We've been in a nice person run on the show recently. Like, just good people. um, LeVar Burton. Um, I always get mesmerized when I have him on the show. He's got that voice and those big brown eyes. And I, I just kind of like, I feel like, I feel like he's hypnotizing me. So let's, let's see if that happens today. Um, he's got a great, his own big time game show, Trivial Pursuit, which is, uh, on the CW. He's, uh, doing his second season right now. So we'll talk about what it's like to have a game show that people like. Let's do it.

2:06Welcome back. I hear you're on a deadline for writing something right now. Today, in addition to beginning to beat the drum for the second season of Trivial Pursuit, that I have about 48 hours before I deliver my first draft of my first memoir. No way. Yeah, Monday. Monday morning. I've been there. Yeah, yeah. I'm on a deadline right now. Right now? As well. Yeah. The pressure was, I don't, it's unexpectedly gnarly, isn't it? Oh my God. So what's going through your mind? So many things. Am I being truthful enough? Am I honoring the people that have contributed to who I am enough and in the right ways?

3:09how are people going to respond to what I'm putting out there in the world? Some of it for the very first time. A lot. It feels like a lot. Do you... So, okay, so one of them being... the whole point is one has to be totally authentic. Right. Right. That's right. So that's number one, right? And everything then comes through that prism. Through that lens. But then it's like, okay, it's my story. I'm entitled, it's your story. You're entitled to tell it any way you want. But there are people who may be a part of your story that have never been in the news before. And like, it's going to be like, how do you handle them?

4:01There are so many considerations. It's not just you telling your story authentically through your own lens. You really have to have, you know, what I call omnispect. I don't think it's a real word. It's a good one. You sold me. I believe that. Omnispect is really a part of it because you really need to look through many sets of eyes to do this, I think, successfully. and to really succeed at what you said, you know, be authentic. Do you have a title? You don't have to reveal anything if you don't. You can't reveal it, but we do, yes. And it was actually a pretty fun process, and we had some choices.

4:43And the title that we have is not the title I thought we would have. Interesting. Yeah. Who came up with it, or how did it? It was a group discussion between the folks at my company, my editor, and my wife. My wife named my first book. Is that right? Yeah. I mean, our wives are essential parts of our team. That's right. Right? Yeah, 100%. 100%. Who, you don't have to name the person. There may not even be such a person. But I had one or two people I was super concerned about. Oh, God, yeah. Like how—and then the other thing is, what if people who were a part of your life that you just—you're like, eh, I just don't feel like I want to write about that.

5:35Then there's that. And then you're like, why wasn't I in that? Have I mentioned everybody that's expecting to be name-checked? Yes. Have I left anybody out? Yes. Right? Oh, your book's going to be great. Well, I'm... It's going to be great. Thank you, Rob. Thank you, Rob. I can just tell you, I would... It's exactly the kind of book I would want to read. Oh, that. 100%. That is music to my ears, brother. I mean, you have... First of all, anyone who has... Continues to be relevant as long as you have and been in so many different disciplines, is... I'm trying to fit it all in there. You know? Yes.

6:23I'm trying to get it all in and tell good stories. You know, tell a good story that contains, you know, a lot of stories within. Do you have pictures? Yeah, we'll have pictures. Are you doing a... No cartoons, but there will be pictures. No cartoons, pictures. Are you doing... What's the thing at the end where you can go look at your name and go see what page you're on? Are you doing that? I did not because I didn't want people doing that. The glossary. The glossary. I don't want that. I want me... If you want to see if you're in it, you got to fucking read it. Read the book. Read the book. Read the book.

6:51Read the book. Yeah. Yeah. No cheat codes here. Okay. Here's the other thing I was super cognizant of. In whatever part of the book you know is going to be controversial, sexy, whatever you want to say it is, writing it in a way that if there's a – that somebody can't just have a poll quote in and of itself. Right. that hijacks the narrative of the book. Yes. And you see that all the time. And in my book, I have chapters in my life that are unbelievably, like we're in the public eye and we're disastrous, whatever, and you got to write about them. But I made sure that I wrote about it in a way that if you were going to do a poll quote, the poll quote was almost too big to be polled, so they never did.

7:40Right. So the book doesn't become about that thing where you see, oh my God, But he was, you know, whatever it is, whatever that like dark secret is, and that becomes the entire narrative and everything else in the book gets washed away. Does that make sense? There is not solely one line that can be excised and used to promote as an example of what this book is about. I was surprised, though, to learn that some of the most sensitive stuff will be talked about on the press tour. Will be. Will be. Well, yeah, you have to. Well, see, that's my naivete. I, you know, I didn't, I thought, you know, that would be left to the reader to discover.

8:28But it doesn't. It don't work that way. No, because it, listen, you want to sell books. Yeah. It piques people's interest. Yes. Right? Yeah.

8:40How, when does it come out? November of this year. Right. Yeah. It's amazing how long. The long lead time? The long lead time is bananas, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. It's like, really? In today's day and age? Yeah, right? I got to put it to bed now? There's a lot. For November? There's a lot. There's a lot. There's a lot. Okay. What are we doing for covers? How are we feeling about the cover? We've discussed it. We've decided. We haven't shot it yet, but we know what it's going to look like. Haven't shot it yet? No. Shot mine already before I started writing. Did you? at least you have a beginning you know you're gonna like well because it for me it helped frame oh the the vibe it's like yeah it's the vibe i you know what's so funny is i we both grew up in an era where we listened to albums and we couldn't wait to get them and we would read the liner notes right and everything about it was important and you listen to it from side to side song to song Start to finish.

9:38So how the first track for an artist was really important. So I look at like the chapters like an album. Like I'll go, do I have a hit here? Do I have too many up-tempo? Right. I feel like I need a ballad here. So when I'm writing chapters, I look at it like that. Like, I can't do five super earnest, heavy chapters in a row. I got to throw a, you know, radio-friendly hit in there. I've had to make that your awareness is encouraging because I hope to be able to master it the way. You've written books, but you've never written an autobiography. Oh, biography. No, I haven't yet to be. This is my first time being this subject.

10:32Oh, my God. I cannot. Yeah. I cannot. Have you talked to people, well, I'm sure you have, like, who are already going, I can't wait to hear about the X-Wire. I mean, obviously, everybody wants to hear about Roots, obviously. And then Star Trek. I mean. And Reading Rainbow. And Reading Rainbow. Yeah. I mean, those are, like, all iconic. They form like they do my life. they are the structure upon which the book is built. Those three. Oh, interesting. Yeah, those three. You picked a, I was going to ask you about structure. Yeah. Because that's the thing that I think so hard in writing is you can do chronology, you can jump backwards and forwards, you can do so many different things.

11:18Sounds like you have three different. Those three stories aren't told linearly. There is a lot of jumping around, but those three, what I call jewels in my crown, those major events in my life, they serve as the underpinnings for what transpires between page one. Did you have that thing where you go, you write something, you go, that's pretty amazing that that happened. Wait, did that happen? Maybe that didn't happen. Like I had that where I would be like, do you know what I mean? It was a story so insane when I put it on paper. And I'd be like, you know it happened. Obviously, you're not making things up.

12:04But when you see it in black and white, you're like, that could not have. Really? Is that? And I would ask, I would call people up and say, for me. To verify. Am I crazy? Or we did this, right? For me, it was that I flew on a dry run with a 9-11 hijackers. What? That was the one for me. Wait a minute. Yeah, it's in my, I forget if it's my second book or my first book, but, and it's like. How many, how many memoirs have you written? I've written two. I've written stories I only tell my friends, which is my first one. And then I wrote one called Love Life. Wow. And I forget which stories were in which books.

12:42Sure. but that story is so insane that I had to call my lawyer and go, this happened, right? Because you then had to call the government and he goes, yeah, basically it was the brief version of this. When I was shooting West Wing, we would always take, I forget what the name of the number of the flight was, but it was the flight that went into the Pentagon. We would always take that flight. It was the first flight out of Washington to LA. and so I was booked on that flight and flew it home 13 days before 9-11 and of course when 9-11 happened and I knew that crew because I flew it so often and obviously it was traumatizing and a horrible, horrible thing fast forward six months later nine months later I want to say I get a letter from Attorneys General of State of Maryland I'm like uh oh what the fuck is this and they're like dear Mr.

13:45Lowe we are we are prosecuting Zacarias Massawi in the the trial of the 11th hijacker we have a manifest for a dry run that they did you're on the manifest we would love we would like to to talk to talk to you actually it was actually it was slightly different it was Zacarias Massawi's lawyer wow wanted to talk to me wow And it was forwarded by the attorneys general. How did that feel? You just go. How do you process that? First of all, a chill runs down your spine. Sure. And then you instantly go, I was with those guys. Right. And then you try to remember it. And it had been a night shoot. And the minute I get on a plane, I'm out.

14:33It's like the minute I hear those engines whine, I'm just like comatose. so I don't remember anything. I remember it was a really small, I was sitting up a friend in first class. We know that they had at least one guy in first, one guy, maybe two in first class. So what I know is it was, I do remember going, wow, this is a small plane. Post proximity. Right there. So if there'd been somebody who, quote unquote, looked dangerous or whatever, I would have noticed that. Right. So the takeaway is these guys looked absolutely like, you know, you or me. There's nothing about them that you would go, uh-oh.

15:11So that much I do know. That makes sense though, doesn't it? Yeah. But I never had to testify because he fired his public defender and defended himself and was found guilty in his serving time. So I never had to talk or testify or do anything. But I did call my attorney to handle it. So then when I'm writing about it years later going, this sounds bananas, right? Wow. You're like, was I really on the cover of Time magazine at 19? Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right? It'd be that. Yeah. You're like, no, yeah, you were a little bar. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes I turn around at my desk and I see it and I thought, whoa.

15:51Whoa.

15:58Great news for comedy TV fans. Every episode of the Hulu original series, Alice and Steve, is streaming on Hulu. From the producers of Baby Reindeer, best friends Alice and Steve see their world implode when Steve starts dating Alice's 26-year-old daughter. When the once rock-solid friendship turns sour, these best friends make the best enemies. Watch every episode of Alice and Steve on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers. Terms apply. Guys, let's face it. As we get older, we can't just skip sleep and eat whatever we want and still feel great the next day. But if you're entering your men's health era, you know it can feel complicated.

16:40Sprouts Farmer's Market makes it easier. Not only do Sprouts have the high-protein foods, nutrient-dense organic produce, and innovative snacks your body craves, it's also got the newest supplements, vitamins, joint support, even creatine to help get you feeling more like you used to. Whether it's men's health or any other health journey, it's easier that Sprouts Farmers Market. Summer always changes how you get dressed. You want pieces that feel lighter and more breathable, things that are easy but still put together. That's where Quince comes in. They focus on high-quality essentials that feel and look amazing.

17:22Think breathable linen and soft organic cotton. And Quince goes way beyond clothing. They have custom upholstered sofas, ceramic cookware, and premium bedding, and more for your home. It's the kind of brand you end up recommending to everyone for everything. One of my producers tried Quince. Here's what he had to say. Yeah, I love Quince. I've had a fantastic experience with it. I wear the cotton polo all the time. I love the jackets. I love the shorts. I just got a new pair of shorts for the summer. I cannot recommend Quince enough, and the prices are fantastic. Elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to quince.com slash rob for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns.

18:06Now available in Canada too. That's q-u-i-n-c-e dot com slash rob for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash Rob.

18:46Pacific Life and Annuity, Phoenix, Arizona.

18:54Do you remember doing the photo shoot? Yes, I do. I do remember doing the photo shoot. And a few years ago, the daughter of the photographer, I ran into her somewhere and she said, my dad has a copy of the original that he would love to gift to you. Yeah. And I now have that. It's not the version that appears on the magazine. It's the raw footage that that magazine cover was composed with or from. Wow. Really, it's like a museum quality photograph. And that, I'm hoping, is in the book. You know what? Can you put it in the book? Maybe if I, you know, get Rob Lovice vibes, there's a second one, you know, at some point.

19:53I think you will find, I think you will, if the book ends up, and I know it will be, if the book does well and people are like, if you have that great experience of people saying, I love your book, read your book, which is so gratifying because at the end of the day, all the other work we do is so collaborative. Yeah. that it's really one of the only things we can do that is completely of us. Yeah. So, for good or ill. So, when it goes well, it's so gratifying. And then you go, I wonder if I have another one in me. It's been an absolutely satisfying personal journey. It has. Do you write? How do you write?

20:33Do you write? I write long-handed, like a child. My iPad. On the iPad? Yeah. I don't use the computer. and I certainly don't use my phone. But the iPad seems to be the right combination. Tactile and. Of tactile and convenient, right? Portable. Mine are on legal pads, which is what's cool about them is I get, when they're done, they're bound. I have these big, beautiful handwritten. That's amazing. My penmanship sucks, so. Mine is ish. Ish? Yeah. It's ish. Mine is almost illegible to me. To you? Yeah. Can you imagine what it's like to you? It's illegible. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, that's why I type it.

21:16I'm excited for that. The last time you were on the show, we were talking about Trivial Pursuit. Really? You actually told me that you had an idea that you had just taken out. Wow. And now here it is. Right. It's out. Season two. Woo. Let's go. Yeah. And I love Trivial Pursuit. I love that game so much. Well, oddly enough, you come up in conversation all the time because we both shoot our game shows overseas. Where do you shoot yours? London. I shoot mine in Ireland. I know. Wait, I want to shoot in London too. Well, come on over because, you know. We'll trade sets. We'll trade sets. Yeah. We'll do a, what is it when characters from different shows show up?

22:01A crossover. We'll do a crossover. A crossover episode. Game show crossover. Wow. Um, what, what has been your, cause I find out with everything that when you go into a different discipline, there's a surprise where you're like, oh, I didn't know it was going to be like this, both maybe complicated. And then that, that you love, did you, have you had anything like that where you're like, I had no idea it was going to be like, whatever. I had no idea that the learning curve would be that steep. Right. For me. Yeah. It's a different beast altogether. Okay. So I'm curious to know your point of view, cause people ask me about doing the floor.

22:35Yeah. And I tell them, it is so exciting. Mm-hmm. Because I feel, for me, it's like being, it's part one man show. Mm-hmm. You're part director because you're in charge of the pace. You're in charge of knowing when to lay off. You're running the game. Know when to, and then the game running. Someone who's in your ear. Yep. Going, remember, they've won$30 ,000, and if they win this one, you're going to be like, Like, uh. Yep. And all of that happening live at once, there's no other place in our world where we get that. And you have to process all of that input, all of that stimuli effortlessly and without showing it.

23:20Without it showing. People have no idea what goes on. It's crazy. I think, as I did, and we've been in this a long time, I thought you just got up there and winged it. Yeah. It looks so easy. But the huge surprise and revelation is that it's the furthest thing from easy. It's some of the hardest work I've ever done. Season one was, boy, the learning curve for that. Because I was still trying to learn the game, right? I was still thinking of what happens next, you know? Yes. Season two, you know, when we came back a little bit over a year later, I was much more comfortable. much more able to be more myself.

24:05I think in season one, I was LeVar Burton playing a game show host. And in season two, I'm much more LeVar Burton. And that's what people want, obviously. That's what I want. That's my goal, right? That's what I want too. I had them put in the Rob cam, which is a cam down here that whenever there's anything going on, when I hand it over to the contestants and they're playing, I can do I can break the fourth wall Right And like either roll my eyes Yeah Or do whatever And that's so fun Yeah To comment But that's an art form Is like You know This is life changing Yes For people Yeah And Yeah You know It is not There's no game in it Right It's like real money That changes people's lives Mm-hmm And it's a dream Yeah And so And part of my job Is to root for these people Yes Right I'm rooting for the people that come and get to play in the final round.

25:01I really want them. I tell you, I really want you to win this money. Do you play along? No. You don't? You don't in your mind? I don't have time. You don't have time. No, no, no. I have time to read the questions and listen for the answers. That's right. Yeah. But even so, you must have categories where you're like, I'd murder in this. Or I would never, ever even make it on the show. I get to do that when I'm reviewing the questions before we start taping an episode. I sit with one of the producers, John, and go over the questions, especially those that might require special attention. And I'll want to remember and have a reference for when we start taping.

25:44So it's John and my wife, Stephanie, and me, and we compete with each other about who gets the most right. Oh, God. Trivia Pursuit. Arts and leisure, isn't that one of the... Yeah, I'll take... Your go-to? Take in all comers. Yeah. And then there's like a history, geography. There's history, right? History, I'm... There's sports, science, and nature. Are sports, science, and nature all three... Sports and leisure. Sports and leisure, done. Right. Science and nature. Nature part, maybe? Yeah. Okay, give me some... Right. History. Done. Let's go. Let's go. Art and literature. What's that for? Yeah.

26:25You know what? I'm feeling kind of well-rounded right now. Right? Well, you are. Right? You are. As long as we keep away from numbers. Well, geography. Oh, no, let's go. Yeah. Really? Yes. Yes? Yes. Wow. I was thinking about it the other day. I was just thinking about the other day. I was patting myself on the back as I normally do as I go to bed at night. And I was thinking, you know what, dude? You're good at geography. Wow. I mean, that is the, opposite for most human beings, at least most Americans. Most Americans. Yes, most Americans. And you know what I realized is we have a, look, is that bad factoid earned?

27:06For sure. But also, it's really easy to be well-traveled when you can get in a car, drive 90 miles, and you're in another country. Yes, indeed. Yeah, you're right. Do you know what I mean? So it's like, we've got to really want it. You know, you live in Kansas and you want to go travel abroad. You got to want it. That's U.S. geography, which most Americans don't really know to any degree of proficiency. But, you know, our geography category is about world geography. I'm good on both of them. You know what, Rob? I know where Crete is. I know where the Maldives are. I know where Indonesia is. I know where Bhutan is.

27:51You know where Georgia is, not the state? Not the state, but the country. Right? I mean, those are good ones right there, right? Yeah. Capital of Georgia? Of the state? Yeah. No, no, no. The country. The capital of Georgia.